


Tête-à-tea

by Ruyi



Series: touken ranbu prompts [24]
Category: Fate/Grand Order, 刀剣乱舞 | Touken Ranbu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 19:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruyi/pseuds/Ruyi
Summary: A tsukumogami and half-oni have a simple chat over tea.





	Tête-à-tea

**Author's Note:**

> The opening line comes from Amanda Lovelace's poetry, "To Make Monsters Out of Girls."

"He told me I was an obligation," she begins.

‘Then he saw you not as a daughter or son,’ Yagen pauses,  ‘But an asset.’  


For once he is taller, but that is only because he stands while she sits. He’s serving her tea that he brewed himself, attending on her like he does his General–though she _is _one in her own right. It’s thanks for a favor done and a life saved, something to lighten the burdens of a dark night littered with corpses. Though their talk, it seems, has given her another weight to shoulder upon her frame.

‘The tea’s ready,’ he says next after checking the time. ‘I’m not good with refined things, but this is an exception.’ Still, his motions are more military than grace as he pours her a cup and places it in front of her seat.

‘You don’t have to drink it,’ he adds a second later, almost too late. ‘I thought it’d be nice, but there’s no formalit–’  


She pours him a cup too, and sets it in the empty spot next to her seat. _Come, _she says, _You shouldn’t stand long on that leg, even if it’s healed. _

So he comes and he sits, and they both drink their tea. It’s stiff but not unnatural; they hold themselves straight and poised because it’s a natural state of being, one they’re used to, one they lived.

‘Thanks. Thank you,’ Yagen says when they’ve drained their cups. He takes an extra sip from the dregs anyways, to hide his face after stumbling over his words.  


“Please,’ she gestures to him, the action both commanding yet elegant. “Is it not usually the guest who thanks her host?”  


‘I have much more to thank you for,’ he replies. ‘For saving my life. For accepting my invitation.’ He tilts his head next, averting his eyes to the ceiling as he ponders his next words.

‘For treating me as a friend, instead of a obligation…maybe.’  


Sunlight dances on the table between them, mixed with the dappled shadows of tree branches waving in the breeze from the window outside. They draw patterns on Yagen’s gloves and against the surface of the empty cup in his hands. She watches them for a while, before taking the teapot to pour him tea.

‘Wait, I should be doing that–’  


“No obligations,” she murmurs back, firmly filling his cup. “That is the nature of your friendship?”  


‘Yeah…’   


“Then let us make a toast to it,” she resolves, and fills her own cup next. “As warriors of honor do—as anyone hoping to strengthen their bonds.”

She raises her teacup first. He blinks, then raises his own with a rueful smile. The two cups clink in the quiet room, the sound pure and bright.

**Author's Note:**

> I think the best way to explain this is "Yagen and Raikou meet one day in an apartment flat of a city somewhere and have tea while referencing Raikou's sucky dad." Very short drabble that literally brushes the surface of their personalities + backstories, because I think they'd make for an interesting dynamic. Same setting as the [two hearts, one whole] verse. Cross-posted from tumblr.


End file.
